You are en emperor of a space empire and you have various races in the empire (I look for pretty standard ones, so no energy beings and such ). I wanted to categorize them into bigger groups, like you conquered a planet and there is a "Humanoid" race (without specifying what kind).

I thought of these:

Humanoids - terrans and all races from StarTrek

Insectoids - ants, bugs and other hive type beings

??? - bird like

??? - cat/bear/wolf like (agile, aggressive)

Octopoids - octopus like, tentacles and the like

I also look for names for the "???".

Working on an Emperor focused, no micromanagement, asymmetric, 4X, space empire builder:

a) find a term, plus a few alternative ones that describe the category (reference species, most recognizable feature in a body/behaviour-wise sense, etc)

b) get a good latin online dictionary, put it in there, try your alternatives, until you find a translation that sounds good and might be known to your user (you dont want them to grab an online dictionary either during gameplay, to reverse-engineer your namefinding process)

c) slap "-oid" behind it

d) google it if it is a thing, if yes - done, if not - maybe done, or find another word, up to you

Well, maybe less standard/latin name for these? Something still similar and giving the impression of the terra animals but sounding more alienish (especially the Wolves).

Looking at your previous list, your names seem to follow a standard "Latinish" naming scheme; if you want names that sound more alien, do you perhaps want those changed as well? After all, "insectoid" and "octopoid" aren't far off from "lupine", "ursine" and "avian"...

As to finding new ideas for creatures, it's a little cliche, perhaps, but have you considered looking at deep-sea creatures for inspiration? There are some awfully weird-looking creatures down there, and you may find some interesting designs for aliens. Another potential source for ideas might be prehistory--especially the very early stages of life. For a few examples, take a look at this, this and this.

Well all I can offer is my own. Obviously, these are already taken concepts, but perhaps this can inspire you something else.

One of the things we did first when looking up for species for my game is establish what we didn't want. The answer was simple: we did not want a universe that feels like Star Trek where every race is a biped humanoid with minimal cosmetic changes.

To eradicate humanoid and biped, we've looked for variants on bilateral symmetry.

Obviously, most species that have no symmetry at all are bound to die and never evolve. The reasoning is that bilateral symmetry offers organs redundancy (2 eyes, 2 hands, 2 legs, 2 lungs, etc.) As a result, even a damaged or genetically incorrect subject is still able to survive and help the species evolve as a whole.

Unilateral symmetry, as 'specialized' as it could be, would have a very hard time standing the test of time, and sooner or later, it would only survive if a mutant emerged with some form of symmetry.

Note that bilateral symmetry is not 100% accurate in our case (the heart, for example, is unique, so is the liver, etc.)

Our first series of species thus had more than bilateral symmetry (we had a species with a symmetry of 5 exactly identical parts for example).

This led us to create the 'Gorath', a worm-like species that's actually replicated 5 times together. The result is threatening and remains highly efficient (thanks to the 5 tentacles!)

In our effort to keep things different, we've tried to look further into different lifeforms, and how they could function. We're created the 'Propheon' under the assumption that is was some form of species that could survive under liquid form. It still created itself small shells and protected itself in forcefields, but it was essentially a water-like species.

We've also created our own take on the 'Robots'. However, due to lore constraints, these robots were the last remnants of the human species, and as a result, were used to interface with them. Thus, our Robots exhibit human parts (synthetic) such as a 'fake face' they can display and communicate with. Because they were meant to support humans in everyday life and that this precept has survived where the humans haven't, our robots, though definitely not android, still have a few random human pieces.

Also, I know you are not looking for energy beings, and my assumption is because you need something that has tangible grip, however, the two can be reconciled. We've created a species that's just energy (actually, they are crystals that can gather and unleash energy, similar to a sleep pattern to regenerate themselves). On their own, these rocks do little, but when unleashing magnetic energy, they're able to use neighboring rocks and fashion themselves a body. The body itself generally takes a very rough shape that could be summed as '3 limbs and a core'. They are called 'Azuldar'

You can see all of them on my indieDB entry. Perhaps the concept art will help you a bit?

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You might mean sapient (wise/rational, as in like humans), rather than sentient (capable of feeling and perception, like everything from fish to gorillas)? Sentient is oft misused.

As another mentioned, Avian is traditional for birds.

You might be able to find inspiration for names in phylogeny.

Carnivora is the order that includes the animals you mentioned.

Carnivian, maybe? Carnivoid? But then that includes "void" which means something else. Carnivoroid maybe.

If you need anything inspired by Earth animals, just look back in the phylogeny, and see if you can find an Order, Family, or Genus name you like. Or you can try to find something in Latin, since that's the language that's used in phylogeny. Plenty of free English-Latin dictionaries online.

If you need anything inspired by Earth animals, just look back in the phylogeny, and see if you can find an Order, Family, or Genus name you like. Or you can try to find something in Latin, since that's the language that's used in phylogeny.

If the player will always assume the role of "humans", this makes sense. You will get to perceive other species using your own nomenclature system (this may not be how they refer to themselves).

For example:

Species 8472 is the name given to a species by the Borgs in Star Trek (their true name was later revealed to be Undine). Sometimes you don't need to know everything to make a classification that is relevant.

Edited by Orymus3, 06 October 2014 - 10:39 AM.

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